Plans for the direction of the mining and forestry sectors are likely to be high on the agenda when Minister of Natural Resources Robert Persaud meets stakeholders in the sectors next Monday.
Stabroek Business has been unable to secure full details of the agenda for what will be the first major engagement between the only new ministry to be created by the Ramotar administration and interest groups in the natural resources sub-sector. Mining sources have told this newspaper that a key likely item on the agenda could be the articulation of government’s perspective on the coexistence between the mining and forestry sectors, on the one hand, and the country’s new Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) to which it committed itself under the Jagdeo administration.
Next Monday’s meeting is likely to be of particular interest to the mining sector as small miners had clashed with the Jagdeo government over what they said were attempts to impose environmental stringencies that would place inhibiting legal restraints on their operations.
The Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA), the umbrella body for the country’s small miners, has been making no secret of its concern over the changes that have been taking place in the mining sector, seeking in the process to make a case for arrangements that allow for the growth and development of the industry alongside regulations that take account of environmental considerations.
Though the miners will ultimately have little choice but to live with any new environmentally-driven regulations, the small mining sector continues to make a case for its importance to the country’s economy.
Last year, for the third consecutive year, gold declaration passed 300,000 ounces, a significant accomplishment when account is taken of continually rising gold prices. At Monday’s meeting, Persaud is expected to formally make a 2011 gold declaration of around 363,000 ounces, a figure which, for the first time ever, surpasses gold production by the Canadian firm Omai Gold Mines Ltd in any one year.
Environmental concerns apart, Monday’s meeting is also expected to address operational and administrative issues within the sector including the age-old challenge of the lack of capacity on the part of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) to oversee day-to-day operations in the mining sector. Sources in the sector have told Stabroek Business that worsening problems of operating irregularities in some of the gold-bearing regions of Guyana coupled with an inadequate official inspectorate has created both cause and opportunity for the new Natural Resources Ministry to revamp the GGMC. A reliable source has informed Stabroek Business that next Monday’s meeting could see the announcement by Persaud of the appointment of a new commissioner to run the GGMC.
Next Monday’s meeting could also bring to the fore issues relating to the co-existence between the country’s gold and forestry sectors which, in the recent past has also been a subject of controversy and which might now be compelled to live with an imposed solution given the fact that both sectors now fall under a single ministry.
That apart, stakeholders in the forestry sector would also be preoccupied with their separate concerns, not least of which has been the recurring controversy between local log exporters and value-added producers over the export of raw lumber. Protests by value-added producers over log exports last year triggered the announcement by the Guyana Forestry Commis-sion (GFC) of restrictions of log exports; a move which resulted in Persaud qualifying the GFC’s announcement and seeking to provide assurances that the announcement was not intended to suggest that there had been a ban on lumber exports.
Stabroek Business understands that apart from representatives of the mining and forestry sectors, the meeting is also likely to be attended by representatives of the LCDS Secretariat and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
